This invention relates generally to improvements in the art of identifying trays designed to convey items which are specifically selected, and more particularly to improvements in food serving trays for use in hospitals and similar institutions where unique means must be related to previously designated persons.
Prior to this invention, a common means of identifying trays used in assembling and delivering food in hospitals and similar institutions has been to employ a separate device labeled with a card or paper slip and set in the tray. This arrangement offered an opportunity for those served to remove the devices from the tray and had the obvious disadvantage of making possible shifts of the device from tray to tray giving rise to errors in delivery.
To avoid the problems of loss of separate identification holders and the inherent possiblity of placement of such holders in the wrong tray, numerous means for fixing an identifying means to a tray have been devised. U.S. Pat. No. 1,826,037 to Allen provides such a device. However, attachment of that device to a tray made stacking and handling difficult and introduced cleaning problems. U.S. Pat. No. 2,891,695 to Peters provides a somewhat similar device which projects upwardly along an entire side of the tray. The tray is nestable with similar trays but the projected side substantially increases weight and complexity of the tray while retaining the cleaning problem. U.S. Pat. No. 3,442,378 to Wolfe incorporates similar cleaning difficulties in that the identification holder involves areas in which microorganisms can develop relatively free from being dislodged by the flow of cleaning fluids.
Accordingly, this invention is directed to solving the cleaning and stacking problems in the prior art while retaining the features of a simple tray with identification means fixed integrally with the tray and which is capable of firmly holding a replaceable label or identification.